Preparations for a Great Journey

Young Columbus lived in the perfect place at the perfect time for the role he was destined to play in history. He was born in 1451 in Genoa, a seaport now part of Italy. In the fifteenth century, maritime exploration was common. By 1453, the Ottoman Turks had conquered much of southeastern Europe, and they controlled Constantinople (now Is­tanbul, Turkey), a major trade center between Europe and Asia. This made it difficult for Europeans to import the Asian luxuries they wanted-such as gold, jewels, silks, per­fumes, and spices. A land journey with these goods was risky and expensive. Europeans wanted a safe sea route to allow trade with the countries of the Far East-India, China, Japan, and the Indies. That was an important goal in Columbus's time.

As a boy, Columbus helped his father in his wool-weaving business. His father soon pushed him into a business career. At the age of 14, Christopher began sailing on trad­ing ships in the Mediterranean. In 1476, when he was 25 years old, he found out first­-hand how dangerous life aboard ship could be. On his first voyage on the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Portugal, his group of five ships was attacked by 13 French and Portuguese pirate ships. Seven ships went down, and hundreds of men were killed. Columbus, a sailor on one of the ships that sank, held onto a floating oar until he reached the Portuguese shore.

Columbus stayed in Portugal for about 10 years. He settled in Lisbon, an important maritime power, and he joined his brother's mapmaking business. He also worked as a seagoing businessman, buying and selling goods. He married a Portuguese woman, and his first son, Diego, was born in 1480. Columbus's wife died in 1484.

The Portuguese were trying to reach the Far East by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. Columbus thought he had a better route, and he tried to "sell" his idea to the king of Portugal. Columbus claimed that a ship could reach the East by sailing west. He was right, but he also made three important mistakes. First, he underestimated the size of the Earth. Second, he thought that a much greater percentage of the Earth's surface was land than actually is-he didn't realize how large the oceans were. Third, of course, he didn't know that the huge continents of North and South America lay between Eu­rope and Asia. These mistakes were understandable. Columbus was familiar with the writings and maps available to educated people of his time. His studies led him to these geographical errors.

In 1485, after the king of Portugal refused to finance Columbus's expedition, Columbus and his son traveled to Spain to ask King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella for ships and sailors. Columbus promised them wealth and new territory. A religious man, Columbus also promised that his expedition would bring Christianity to new areas of the world. Columbus was a good salesman. Isabella and Ferdinand put him on the royal payroll. However, they could not afford to equip him for the voyage while the Spanish were fighting the Moors (North African Arabs who had conquered and ruled much of Spain for many centuries). Columbus waited about 7 years.

Finally, in 1492, the Spanish conquered Granada, the last Moorish stronghold. Isabella was then able to give more thought to Columbus's idea. King Ferdinand didn't want to spend the money because the recent wars had been very expensive. Legend says that Isabella offered to pawn her jewels to finance the trip. But this sacrifice was not necessary. The treasurer of Spain supplied most of the funds from the national treasury and his own savings. Some of Columbus's wealthy supporters also contributed. What would Columbus receive for undertaking this difficult and dangerous voyage? His writ­ten agreement with the king and queen gave him a good salary, a percentage of the riches his discoveries brought to Spain, the right to be governor of any lands he discov­ered, and aristocratic titles that he could hand down to his descendants. Columbus asked for so much that Ferdinand got angry and almost rejected the arrangement. But, in the end, they made an agreement that was very generous to Columbus.

Check your comprehension.

What were Columbus`s goals?